Encounters at the End of the World

Teachers' Notes to accompany Werner Herzog film

View more documents from GeoBlogs.

Some teachers notes that I put together for the GA / Revolver Entertainment film showing at the Manchester Cornerhouse.

Prints out as a 6 page PDF version as well.

Available on SLIDESHARE.

Lunchtime

One of the (many) great things about working from home is that I can get out of the house, and within 5 minutes be somewhere rather nice. Here's where I ate my lunch today, and then spent an hour working thanks to my mobile broadband.

First 3 images taken in Thornham, and trig point is on the road back to Ringstead (the back way home)

How did the pig get on the roof ?

....the swine flew...

Great BRAIN POP animation

For those using the "Geography of Disease"

Real cycling....

There have been a few cycling-related stories in the last week or so...

Mark Beaumont is preparing for his next adventure, following his record breaking trip around the world. I know the details of the journey, and I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.... ;)

Keep an eye on the news in the next few weeks to hear all the details.

Real Cycling is a rather different cycling experience: http://realcycling.blogspot.com/

Are you a real cyclist ? 

Take the QUIZ

"Home made is better than shop-bought..."

...is what my granny used to say (and perhaps still does) about bread. Of course, she didn't make the full range of loaves that are available in a quality bakers, so if you want a varied diet, you may have to part with the cash...

At the moment, there are a number of collaborative documents that have been created by teachers, to gather together ideas relating to the use of particular web tools or software:

At this week's GEOGRAPHY FLASH MEETING (follow THIS LINK to go to a replay), there was talk of a few collaborative documents.

More on these in a future post....

Share your stuff !

TRF Sustainable Options

View more documents from Kevin Cooper.

Nice work by Kevin Cooper... Share your work via SLIDESHARE...
One of the other new opportunities to contribute comes in the form of a collaborative GOOGLE DOC started by Noel Jenkins.

1976: a good year...

Just been browsing an exercise book of mine from 1976 for a reason that will become apparent in a month or so's time...

Here's a nice image from the first page of the book.

Also interesting to read what I wrote when asked the question: "What is Geography ?"

(Don't quote me on this...)

"Geography is the study of the earth and what goes on underneath it. There are things that go on underneath the earth that affect the shape of the earth, such as volcanoes and earthquakes, there are also things that go off on the surface of the earth that affect the shape of the earth.

There are two main aspects of Geography, one is physical Geography and the other is Human Geography. Things on top of the earth affect the actual shape of the earth such as mountains, valleys, rivers, hills and plains and plateaus. The two main aspects are Physical and Human. 

The Physical aspects of geography involves the study of such things as the sea or glaciers, the weather affects the shape of the earth. All these things are natural forces.

The other, Human Geography, involves the shape or relief of the earth by Man, such as war when bombs drop and make deep holes in the earth.

Building buildings and towns and cities also changes the shape of the earth. Open cast mining and blasting changes the shape of land.

Farming and transport also change the shape of the land, transport changes the land in the shape of canals and roads and bridges.

There are lots of things that change the shape of the earth."  (all sic)

Pretty good eh ? Did you get the point about the shape of the earth ?

For that, I got 2 ticks, a 'Good' and an 'A3'....

Living Geography: York - Book now !

The 2nd of the GA's Living Geography events will take place in York in June at the Royal Station Hotel.

Have just spent an hour or so re-writing my keynote to take account of the things that have happened since the first event in London: notably the rise of Twitter in  my personal learning network, and the launch of the Manifesto. Also rewritten my workshop on 'Everday Geography' as there have been a number of major world events since the last conference too.

You can book online, or by ringing Lucy Oxley on 01142960088

Big discount for GA members as always.

Hope to see some of you there.

Virtual stuff

Two virtual links for you to explore....

The first I discovered when looking at the website of the famous Beconskot model village.

It's a FLASH virtual village creator, which allows you to make your own little village.

The second is from the NATIONAL TRUST.

It allows students to be virtual gardeners and to sign up for a virtual garden called: "MY PATCH".

It's part of their FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD resource - which reminds me: I need to water my pumpkins...

A very merry Unconference...

Just signed up for the Open Source Schools Unconference

It's the first day of the summer holidays (which is nice), except of course with my new role at the GA, summer holidays are a thing of the past :)

Hope to see some of you there perhaps.

Sign up if you would like to attend.

Professorial Lecture...

If you are in London on the evening of the 23rd of June, you may want to get yourself over to the Institute of Education to catch David Lambert's professorial lecture.

‘Geography in Education: lost in the post?’ 

Tuesday 23rd June 2009

5.30pm for 6pm start

Jeffery Hall, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL  

Some say we live in postmodern times. Partly connected to this, a number of schools seem to be embracing a post-disciplinary approach to the curriculum. Geography

itself has fragmented, is struggling for its identity and is arguably lost ­- in the ‘post’. I will not dwell for long on this argument. On the contrary, I will argue that contemporary

geography is a school subject of great significance and has a lot to offer children and young people growing up in a confusing, rapidly changing and dangerous world. Well prepared teachers can use this subject in a way that contributes to both their own and their students’ ‘capabilities’. My main argument is that geography is re-emerging as a subject discipline for its times, both in academia and in the public realm. My lecture will explore this, and the importance of a ‘capability’ approach.

 I shall draw critically on the Geographical Association’s

 ‘manifesto’ for school geography: A different view.

The event includes free tea and biscuits before the lecture (Crush Hall; level 1) and a free wine reception afterwards.

There is no admission charge for the event but, for catering purposes, please book a place with Elaine Peck - telephone 020 7612 6556 or e-mail e.peck@ioe.ac.uk

Mixed framing

A very useful BBC Magazine article, which looks at the way that statistics can be manipulated.

That's not a spelling error: hope you weren't expecting something on mixed farming...

Cairngorms

Image produced using Anquet mapping software

The final legacy spec synoptic is on the topic of Conflict in the Caingorms.

I have created a thread on the Edexcel NING, which already has some useful contributions.

Don't forget the GEOGRAPHY PAGES Cairngorms page.

Cultural evening...

Image by Bryan Ledgard (Creative Commons)

Over to Norwich to see Kate Rusby at the Theatre Royal. Found a beer festival on nearby and had a lovely pint of Otter first.

Here's Kate in a photo by Bryan Ledgard, who works closely with us at the GA.

In the background is Andy Cutting, whose accordion playing adds sublime textures to Kate's songs...

Out afterwards to the wonderfully lit St. Peter Mancroft church, where some immense improvised jazz from Tomasz Stanko was clearly audible through the gothic doors. Stood and listened for a while, before dash back home through quiet country lanes...

Should I stay or should I go ?

At the GA Conference a couple of weeks ago now, there were 3 awards given to articles published in the GA's journals: Award for Excellence in Leading Geography

Paul Bolton won one of them for his excellent article: "Should I stay or should I go ? An enquiry investigating Polish migration to the UK"

There are several ideas in this article which could usefully be used in a number of other situations, and one of them is to collect a series of items to represent the issue / enquiry that is being covered. I'll return to this idea in a later post...

The Man who cycled the World

Out now to pre-order on AMAZON is the book of Mark Beaumont's record breaking round-the-world solo cycle.

On 15 February 2008, Mark Beaumont pedalled through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. 194 days and 17 hours previously, he had set off from Paris in an attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time. Mark smashed the Guinness World Record by an astonishing 81 days. He had travelled more than 18,000 miles on his own through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can endure, camping wild at night and suffering from constant ailments. "The Man Who Cycled the World" is the story not just of that amazing achievement, but of the events that turned Mark Beaumont into the man he is today. From the early years of his free-spirited childhood in the Scottish countryside, he had been determined to break records, cycling across Scotland and then from John O'Groats to Land's End by the age of fifteen, raising thousands of pounds for charity. After leaving university, he had been equally determined not to settle for an average existence, but to break free and see the world from a saddle, to follow his dreams. This is the tale not just of one of the last great circumnavigation world records, and of the incredible endurance it took to accomplish it, but an insight into many of the world's cultures from a unique perspective. From Paris to Istanbul, through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India and south-east Asia to Singapore, then across Australia, New Zealand and the United States before the final legs in Europe, all at hundred miles a day, this is the story of a quite remarkable adventure, by a quite remarkable man. 

GEOBLOGGING WITH MARK

Val Vannet, Mark's former geography teacher tracked his journey, and identified the geographical aspects of the terrain through which Mark passed.

Mark and I at SAGT Conference, October 2008 (he's the one on the right...)

Advance planning is underway for Mark's next journey....

UPDATE

Mark's new website is now live, and will contain more details of the journeys and links to the content in association with the BBC.

Finally, I just had an e-mail inviting me to Mark's book launch: in London and Edinburgh later this month. Unfortunately, I am already on my way to Bristol that day...

GeographyPages

New look for GeographyPages - now with added Manifesto....

Learning outside the Classroom

Spent yesterday at the East of England showground in Peterborough. Ironically, as Truckfest set up outside in bright sunshine, we were inside with the curtains closed...
The event was the fourth of a series of events to showcase LEARNING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM.

A number of presentations went through the background to the website, and the support that is available for teachers.

From my perspective, there was of course a distinct absence of geography specifically mentioned, but there was actually very little mention of any particular curriculum area - that's the nature of the website.

There were a few interesting points:

• role of LOtC in re-professionalising the profession
• importance of subjects as the suggested timings could not be met by trips and visits
• development of Quality Badge for providers, which could be obtained through 2 different routes
• the idea that value was added by the actual 'place' where the activity took place
• importance of properly evaluating the experiences that students have while outside the classroom

Also discussion of the findings of the OFSTED report from October 2008

Also met up with Dr. Frances Harris from Kingston University, who has an interesting project looking at the response of farmers and schools to farm visits, given that we are in the year of Food and Farming.

It's coming up the date of the Hall Farm visit from last year (a FLICKR set of my images here which people might find useful) - I hope colleagues are going again, assuming it is repeated and goes ahead....

Finally, if you do want some learning to take place outside of the classroom, why not make use of the GA Secondary Phase Committee's excellent DOORSTEP GEOGRAPHY workshop that formed part of the recent GA Conference. (Follow the link to the Doorstep Geography blog)

Ga Conf09 W21 Bppt

View more presentations from geogrocks.

These are some activities that you could take part in in the area around school - focus on some learning rather than getting hung up on health and safety.

And if you're a provider, or someone looking for an experience for students, think about what the Quality Badge means for you.

News from the RGS

Got my RGS AGM documents today.

Some great news that Graham Goldup, who I have been involved with in a number of ways over the years, has won the award that I was (ahem) awarded last year: the Ordnance Survey award "for excellence in geography teaching in secondary education"...

The other winner of the Ordnance Survey award for this year is Becky Kitchen, who is Head of Geography at Aylesbury School, Buckinghamshire. She is a CGeog, and has had articles published in Teaching Geography.

Well done to both ! I know they'll have a great evening on the 1st of June. Plenty of wine to be had at the Reception...

There are some other interesting awards and changes of roles, with Sir Gordon Conway stepping down as President to be replaced by a familiar name...

You can read the 2008 REVIEW by following the link (PDF) : I feature on p. 14...

We'll always have Paris....

Dan Ellison is planning another Urban Earth walk: this time in Paris.

Check out the URBAN EARTH NING and sign up to express your interest in the Paris walk and join the discussion, and also to catch up with previous Urban Earth walks, such as this one across Tyneside...